Four things. One, to add to the caveats I listed last time, here’s Kos with one more:

Actually, these polls are in great part a sign that name ID still means a great deal — Giuliani has the best GOP numbers and also happens to be the best-known Republican in the field. Nobody knows who Romney is right now. You’d expect all of this to tighten up considerably by November 2008.

Yes, you would. Another way to tell what effect name ID may be playing in these hypothetical matchups is to do similar polls for Barack Obama and John Edwards. Which, according to Kos, they may do next month. Whether they do or they don’t, I hope that if Alabama is considered poll-worthy, then Texas will be as well.

Looking at all the results so far, I’d have to say that the only state in which Hillary Clinton is not doing as well (or better) than you’d expect is Wisconsin. Maybe everything else is for real and that’s the outlier. Who knows? We’ll have a much better feel for this as we see more data. In the meantime, as they say when they print the point spreads in the paper, this is all for entertainment purposes only. Next year at this time it’ll start to mean something. So enjoy, but keep it in perspective.

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The reality is that none of these people, other than Hillary may even be running a year from now. Howard Dean led polls once, as I recall. John McCain even once won a real state primary and look where it got him. Giuliani is running purely on name recognition, but the hard core Republicans don’t much care for his three marriages or his political views that are public record. But I certainly encourage the Republican Party to nominate a man who worked as a corporate lobbyist for twenty years. Maybe for once Americans will actually vote in their own self interest.